Jan Thomas Cornels - Hello Stranger (Blue Sungazer)

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  Still from Blue Sungazer

Inspiration

The project began with the surreal image of a barrister stranded on a space station, wrestling with questions of law, time, and exile. The music video draws on ancient myth, climate catastrophe, and quantum physics—braiding together sources as disparate as Frank Hermann’s thesis on quantum optics and Neil Price & Bo Gräslund’s research into the mysterious “blue sun” of AD 536. At its core, it’s about alienation and wonder: what happens when the laws we live by are suspended among the stars?

What it does

The music video pairs Jan Thomas Cornel’s haunting song Hello Stranger with a science-fiction narrative created by Phoebe Jaspé. AI-generated imagery, Unreal Engine, and virtual production create a hybrid world where cosmic law and personal longing collapse into each other. The enigmatic “Blue Sungazer” appears as a witness, a figure caught between myth and technology.

How we built it

Filming took place at the Virtual Production studio at Tvibit in Tromsø, using a combination of AI-assisted visuals and Unreal Engine environments. Supported by Tvibitstigen and Tvibit’s Kreativ Teknologi program, the team integrated live-action footage with procedural space station sets, blending practical performance with digital worlds. Text fragments drawn from Frank Hermann’s work on 6Li atoms were woven into the visual design, grounding the dreamlike visuals in hard science.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge was integrating abstract scientific language into the poetic rhythm of the video without overwhelming the narrative. Another was balancing the aesthetic tension between mythic imagery (the blue sun) and sleek, futuristic environments. Technically, aligning Unreal Engine’s real-time rendering with AI-generated sequences demanded experimentation and iteration.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to create a world that feels at once ancient and futuristic, where the music, visuals, and text resonate in unexpected ways. The collaboration between musicians, filmmakers, scientists, and technologists came together into something larger than the sum of its parts.

What we learned

We learned how flexible virtual production can be when combined with AI, and how scientific texts can become poetic when reframed in an artistic context. We also learned that myth and physics—though seemingly far apart—can both illuminate our anxieties about the future.

What's next

The next step is to expand the collaboration: exploring live performance possibilities where the Blue Sungazer exists as both stage presence and digital entity, and presenting the project at experimental film, art, and music festivals. We also see potential for installations where viewers can walk through the space station themselves, confronting the “blue sun” as a personal phenomenon.

Built With

• elevenlabs
• lumadreammachine
• runwayml
• virtualproduction